


It's In The Asking

by jujubiest



Series: SPN Finale Fix-Its [7]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fix-It, M/M, Post-Canon, Romantic Fluff, Sam Fixes It, no beta-readers we die like Eric Kripke in The French Mistake
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-17 17:27:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28603677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jujubiest/pseuds/jujubiest
Summary: Sam thinks Dean will ask Jack to fix it, and is flabbergasted when he doesn't. Then again, when has Dean ever been able to ask for the things he wants most? Guess it's up to Sam to make happily ever after happen.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Jack Kline & Sam Winchester
Series: SPN Finale Fix-Its [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2051256
Comments: 4
Kudos: 142





	It's In The Asking

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in Google Keep of all things, on my phone, last night when I couldn't sleep. It's...worrisome, how often that's been happening.

Sam thinks, at first, that Dean will ask Jack to fix it. He knows how Dean is when Cas is gone. Knows he doesn't cope, doesn't deal, buries his grief in booze and fury until it nearly destroys him.

And he certainly didn't hesitate to try and bargain with Chuck for Cas's life. So Sam expects, when they win, when Jack is God, that Dean will ask.

But Dean doesn't ask.

And at first Sam is flabbergasted. He doesn't understand why. How can Dean not want Cas back, after everything? When they're finally free and he might have a chance at happiness?

Then it hits him, because of course. Dean never thinks he deserves happiness, and he doesn't think he has the right to ask anything of Jack. Sam's spent his entire life with Dean and he's never seen him want something and deny it to himself as badly as he's watched him want and deny Castiel.

Dean won't ask for what he wants--what he needs. But Sam hopes when it's offered to him, he'll have the good sense to accept it.

He waits until they get home to the bunker before he prays--god, prays--to their son. He has about a hundred text messages--three or four each from Jody and Eileen alone--that he needs to answer. But they're here, they're alive, and as much as it makes Sam's chest ache...they can wait. This can't.

"Jack," he says quietly, almost a whisper. His bedroom door is closed, but he still feels somehow like a prayer should be hushed. "I know you're gonna be hands-off, but...there's one thing I have to ask, and I really hope you're listening."

"Hello!" Jack says, in that sweet little-boy way of his which always reminds Sam, abruptly and painfully, that whatever he may look like he's only three years old. Sam turns with a smile on his face to find Jack standing at the foot of his bed.

"Hey Jack," he says, going to embrace him. He doesn't think twice about the etiquette of hugging God until he's already done it, but by then Jack has returned the embrace, so he thinks it's probably fine.

"I heard your prayer," he says as they pull back, all wide-eyed earnestness. "And I am going to be hands-off, really. But Chuck left kind of a mess, and I figured I should clean it up a little before I just--"

Sam realizes Jack's rambling is anxious, like he's been caught doing something wrong and feels the need to defend himself.

"Hey, hey," he interrupts. "You don't have to explain yourself to me, okay? I know you're gonna do great, no matter what. And I think it's a good thing that you want to fix some what Chuck left broken. That's...actually why I called."

Jack's expression clears, and Sam can't help but smile. He really is still their kid, even if he's also God. He always will be their kid, first and foremost.

So Sam hopes he'll understand why Sam asks this.

"Jack...how much do you know, now, about...about Castiel and Dean?"

Jack frowns.

"I know Castiel pulled Dean from Hell twelve years ago. I know he rebelled against Heaven for Dean. I know they've been like family ever since. I know Castiel made a deal with the Empty to save me, and used it to sacrifice himself, to save Dean from Billie."

Sam takes in a sharp breath. He hadn't known that, though he'd guessed as much.

"I know..." Jack stops, as though not sure he should say the rest.

"Yes?" Sam coaxes gently.

"I know they love each other. As family but also...different. Different from how they love you or me."

Sam sighs. He had known that, too, even if they didn't.

"That's how Castiel called the Empty," Jack says softly, a faraway look in his eye, as if he's seeing something other than Sam or the room they're in. "He finally said it out loud, but Dean didn't get to say it back." Jack blinks and focuses on Sam again, his expression stricken.

God. Sam had guessed some of what Dean refused to talk about, just from the bloody handprint on the jacket he wouldn't throw out. But he'd never imagined this. No wonder Dean is even more shut down than usual.

"Jack," he says, a note of desperation creeping into his voice. "Will Dean ever recover? Will he move on, without Cas in his life?"

That faraway look settles back into place. Sam wonders if Jack is actually looking at the future.

"...No," Jack says slowly. "He won't. And...neither will you. He'll keep going, keep living, for you. And you'll stay with him, pushing other people away in the meantime, out of love and worry. He'll smile and pretend everything's okay, and some days you'll almost believe him. But he won't really be Dean anymore. Just a shell, going through the motions. You'll be afraid to leave him alone, and for good reason. He won't fight for his own life. He'll be reckless on hunts, careless in fights. In a few years he'll die on a routine case. A meaningless death, preventable. He won't let you save him. No one but you will attend his funeral, because by then you'll both have burned all your other bridges."

Jack blinks and looks up at Sam, the horror in his eyes mirroring Sam's own.

"We can't let that happen," he says, and Sam has never agreed with anything more.

"Can you get Cas back?" He asks. Jack smiles.

"I think so."

* * *

Dean wakes up around noon to a nightmarish pounding noise, a heavy fist against solid wood. It takes him a minute to realize it's the sound of Sam pounding on his bedroom door, not Death coming for him and Cas. Because Cas is...

He groans and rolls over, muttering a garbled "go 'way" before burying his head back in the pillow.

He's never slept in in his life, but they just saved the world. Again. He thinks he's entitled, just this once.

But Sam won't stop, and finally Dean gets up and shuffles across the room, kicking several empty beer bottles out of sight under the bed so he won't have to deal with one of those judgmental-but-sympathetic faces his brother likes to pull.

"What?" He grumbles, yanking open the door.

But the owner of the fist causing all the noise makes a hasty retreat down the hall, and the person left standing on the other side isn't Sam.

Dean blinks, then blinks again. He's sure he must be dreaming.

"Cas?"

His angel, looking tired and rumpled and perfect, offers a small smile.

"Hello, Dean."

"Cas!" Dean wraps him in a tight hug, uncaring for the moment that he's in nothing but boxers and a t-shirt. Cas returns the embrace immediately, and Dean feels his whole body relax, tension he didn't even realize he was holding bleeding out of him.

"I thought you were gone for good," he says into Cas's shoulder, voice thick with emotion.

"So did I," Cas says, and Dean thinks he's not imagining a slight crack in that deep, gravel voice as well. God, he thought he'd never hear that voice again, but it sounds so good.

He pulls back, reluctantly, after what feels like too long for a regular hug between friends. His hands linger of their own accord, moving from shoulders, to neck, to finally rest on Cas's face, holding him there as Dean stares and stares and stares. He thinks he could stare at that face for the rest of his life.

Cas, though, looks oddly uncertain. Like he's worried or not sure of his welcome.

"What's wrong?" Dean says, and a million awful possibilities jump to mind. Maybe this isn't permanent. Maybe he can't stay. Maybe he doesn't want to stay. Maybe the Empty is coming after them. Maybe--

"What I said, before...before. I know it's not--" he trails off, looking sad and nervous and, worst of all, guilty. Like he thinks Dean will be angry with him. Like he thinks loving Dean isn't something he's allowed.

And now Dean understands, feels the guilt crashing down on him. Because Cas had given him this incredible, heart-wrenching speech and all Dean had done was stare and ask stupid questions. Cas had said "I love you" and all Dean had said back was "don't do this."

He's replayed that scene in his mind countless times now. Looked at it from every angle. Imagined what he would say if he could have another chance.

And here it is, his other chance, and Dean finds that he's completely tongue-tied.

He doesn't know how to give Cas the kind of epic declaration he deserves. He doesn't know how he can return Cas's massive, world-changing, cosmic love with only the small, messy, human kind in his own heart. He doesn't know what could ever possess someone like Cas to love someone like him in the first place.

He remembers the way Cas looked at him when he said "something I know I can't have." It's seared into his mind. He remembers the way Cas smiled as the Empty took him, as if the sight alone of Dean, alive and safe, was enough to make him truly happy.

He's lived his whole life with an endless mantra in his head of not enough, not enough, not worthy, no good. Looking at Cas now, his mind just adds to it: more, more, you deserve more, so much more than I can ever give you.

But he can't deny Cas something he's all but asked for, can he? Even if he doesn't understand why Cas would want it. Dean has never known how to accept love from other people. But god, at least he knows how to give it, small and broken man that he is. And if he is inexplicably what Cas wants? Well.

"Cas," he says at last, still holding his angel's face between his hands like he's afraid if they stop touching he'll disappear. "Cas, I don't know why you would even want me. But if...if you do. If you still..." He swallows down the lump of emotion threatening to choke him, reducing his voice to a throaty rasp. Tries again.

"You can have me," he manages. Cas's eyes are wide now, surprised--which Dean hates--and so, so blue--which Dean loves. "God, Cas...of course you can have me. You do have me. I'm...I'm yours."

He doesn't know if he leans in first, or if it's Cas. He just knows their foreheads are touching and his hands have migrated to Cas's hair. He can feel Cas's breath on his face and his arms circling Dean again, holding on like he never plans to let him go.

Dean would be okay with that.

"I love you," he exhales, and with that breath goes the last bit of tension he was holding onto. His heart is pounding. His heart is soaring. Turns out Cas was right: saying it out loud? The most incredible feeling.

But Cas was wrong, too. Because with Cas solid and real and alive under his hands, Dean knows for sure: the being has nothing on the having.

And if the way Cas looks at him is anything to go by, his angel agrees.

* * *

Down the hall, Sam and Jack watch Dean drag Cas into his room and hear the door shut firmly behind them. They share a look, and then a double high-five.

"Fucking _finally_ ," Sam exclaims. Then looks at Jack, wide-eyed. "Uh...don't repeat that."

Jack just laughs at him.


End file.
